SPELL } HISTORY

[apotropaism]

❝ DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC?

BELIEVE IN IT HARDER ❞

Once she was a famous beauty, the type people wrote stories and songs about in their desperate attempts to catch her fancy. Renowned across her lands for the voice that spoke with the song of a lark, eyes that shone like stars, hair dark as evening, and skin soft and beautiful as newly spun silk. Time and again as she grew up, tall and dark and shimmering with repressed appetites, she was told that she would be a princess, a maiden, a blessed girl — Someone who would one day be saved by a man, someone whose fortunes and life were tied to another’s whims and mercies. She decided that she did not want that. Journeying from the safety of her village, she entered the forests. Journeying from the forests, she entered the glen’s waters. That is where she found the spirits and asked for a trade. I have no desire to be at the mercy of this world, she told them and it was there she showed her hunger, her desire for more. For it is not good nor kind. I shall wish not to win its love but earn its respect. My goal is not to be a piece in the game but a player. What must I give up to achieve that? The spirits gave her their price and she accepted it without fear. For the wind’s mercy, she gave up her voice. She speaks no longer with the song of a lark but instead with the howling gale in her control. For the fire’s destruction, she gave up the light in her eyes. She looks to the world with not stars in her eyes but sparks and ashes. For the earth’s power, she gave up the silk quality of her skin. She wears it instead as armour and not as cloth with the marks that wind around her form, warning people of her arrival instead of boasting of her looks. For the water’s s grace, she gave up the evening in her hair. She bears the silver light of the moon as her colour, glittering like dying light from the merciless skies. A witch, people whispered in fear, in shock when she emerged from the glen’s waters, the forests, her destined path. A force, she replied back with a smile on her face, a promise in her heart. She had her share of adventures soon after. Year after year she changed the fate of many, weaving spells and curses and blessings as she saw fit. She caused flowers to bloom and souls to die; rained fortune and showered damnation as easily as she breathed and believed to be right. People, of course, remembered her crueller moments. The stories and songs about her changed. Then faded. She became a fact of life at that point, a whisper people tell their little girls with stars in their eyes and voices of lark at night to keep them in line and behaved. She accepted her role and relished in it, acting as they expect her to act and acting as she desired. If they so desperately want to cast her as the villain, the boogeyman of their sleep than they shall do as they please. She will continue live the life she made for herself with her own two hands and her spells to the nature. Centuries passed. The forest changed its paths. The spirits died or moved away. The now empty glen that started it all remained her only connection to her beginnings and the one place she would return to, time and again, when she desired rest. She was by herself for many a year at that point. Until, one day, she heard the sounds of someone approaching her home...